Business & Technology Advisory - July 2021 - Cooperative.com
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Business & Technology Advisory
July 2021
RURAL ENERGY STORAGE DEPLOYMENT PROGRAM (RESDP)
CASE STUDY:
Poudre Valley REA Microgrid at Red Feather Lakes
Bringing Resiliency to the Edge of the Grid
RESDP Project
This is the first in a series of case studies on the deployment of battery energy storage systems
(BESS) projects at electric cooperatives for NRECA’s Rural Energy Storage Deployment Program
(RESDP). RESDP’s goal is to successfully deploy BESS at rural critical infrastructure served by
electric cooperatives to increase resiliency, improve system efficiency, and to collect best
practices and lessons learned from these deployments with electric cooperatives across the
country. For more information on the project and additional resources, please visit the project
landing page at www.cooperative.com/RESDP.
The project profiled in this case study is the Red Feather Lakes Microgrid by Poudre Valley REA,
which serves an isolated mountain community to support essential services, such as broadband
and shelter, during extended outages.
This material is based upon work supported by the DOE Office of Electricity Stationary Energy Storage Program,
directed by Dr. Imre Gyuk.
Project Description and Goals
Red Feather Lakes is a remote community in a rugged area of the Rocky Mountains, northwest of Fort
Collins, Colorado served by Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association (PVREA) from a 69 kV radial
subtransmission system. The area is subject to short-duration outages caused by vehicular accidents and
weather events damaging the radial power lines serving the area. In addition, wildfires and major storms
can bring extended outages. The microgrid will be utilized to support essential services for the greater
Red Feather Lakes community (which includes several hundred homes and seasonal cabins within a few
miles of the unincorporated village center). In the event of an emergency, the microgrid will support 14
metering locations with a combined load of approximately 90 kW. During islanded operation, the
Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.
microgrid will power essential services that provide broadband, meeting space, telecommunications, fuel,
food, water, general supplies, shelter, and emergency services.
In addition to community resiliency benefits, the project will assess:
• Battery performance, particularly the efficacy of the remote control of the microgrid,
• Effectiveness of the system in outage situations,
• Utilizing the resources for load management based upon distribution, transmission, and generation
needs, and
• Optimizing resiliency through enhanced energy efficiency and load management applications.
Elements of the Microgrid
Provided by Poudre Valley REA and/or
Provided by Community
through RESDP
140 kW/ 446 kWh battery (Tesla) 20 kW (AC) solar photovoltaic system
Controller (Encorp Egility control platform) Generac propane generator (130 kW with
1,000 gallons of storage capacity)
Reclosers, switches, line monitoring,
transformers, distribution line upgrades and
communications systems
Project Partners Supporting Partners
Poudre Valley REA, NRECA,
Tri-State Generation &
Sandia National Laboratories,
Transmission Association
Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory, RFL Community
Total Project Cost
$550,000
Project Partners Cost Share
DOE $250,000
Cooperative* $300,000
*Tri-State G&T is contributing $160,000 to the cost of the project.
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.
Project Milestones and Timeline:
Milestone Completion Date
Project design Fall 2020
BESS procurement Fall 2020
Microgrid controller procurement Fall 2019
BESS and Controller installed and energized December 2020
Commissioning commenced January 2021
Full commissioning and initial operation (grid-parallel) February 2021
Complete distribution system work July 2021
Fully operational (island-mode) July 2021 (estimated)
Answering a Need
In 2018, a community group in Red Feather Lakes won a grant from a family foundation to install a solar
PV system at the community library, a building that also serves as the Red Feather Lakes multi-purpose
community center. The group of co-op members behind the solar initiative invited Poudre Valley REA
staff to discuss ways the community might work with the co-op to maximize the value of the solar
installation. When the single power line snaking up the mountains experienced an outage, the co-op
dispatched crews from its headquarters 60 miles away, and outages of several hours were not uncommon.
The community hoped a microgrid might provide relief.
Josh Noel, PVREA’s vice president, technology and energy resources, says that the cooperative saw an
opportunity to apply lessons learned from an initial microgrid installation at the PVREA headquarters to
meet a community and member need. Discussions continued over the next year, and initial plans focused
on utilizing a battery energy system planned as part of the library’s solar project as the storage element in
the microgrid. PVREA’s focus all along, Noel notes, was to develop a solution that could be replicated
across their system. “While each microgrid has its own unique characteristics, we are creating a template
that can be duplicated in the future to best benefit our members,” he says.
Joining the Rural Energy Storage Deployment Project (RESDP)
A variety of scenarios for the microgrid were proposed and evaluated over the next year. In 2019, while it
was still anticipated that the project would use a battery tied to the library solar system, Poudre Valley
REA set into motion the process to procure a microgrid controller. A request for information (RFI) was
issued, and within a few months, the cooperative selected a microgrid controller solution and formed a
partnership with Encorp, a global microgrid solutions company headquartered in Fort Collins.
Soon after, changed circumstances led to a decision that a larger battery system should be utilized and that
PVREA would be the owner and operator. A new location was selected for the battery system: the Red
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.
Feather Lakes fire station, which is center of the community’s emergency services (see Figure 1). It
offered other advantages, including:
• a propane-fueled generator, already in use for standby generation,
• the only three-phase service in the community, a level of service required for the microgrid, and
• sufficient space to site a battery energy storage system (BESS).
Figure 1: Aerial view of the Red Feather Lakes commercial center, the heart of the microgrid.
Image courtesy of Poudre Valley REA.
The opportunity to join NRECA’s RESDP in 2020 made a significant difference for the Poudre Valley
REA microgrid project. The funding made acquiring the battery achievable and provided access to the
technical services from Sandia National Laboratories and NRECA. These services included:
• Assistance in an analysis of how battery energy storage and a microgrid might improve reliability
and provide new services with a defined economic return,
• Use of Sandia’s technical team to collect data and run models to identify the optimal battery size
and the proper integration of resources within the microgrid,
• Review of the detailed design of the microgrid, and
• Assistance with the development of Request for Information/Proposals documents, clearly
identifying the parameters of the desired solutions.
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.Procuring the Controller and Battery: Lessons Learned
Poudre Valley REA followed two basic tenets of advice in procuring the battery and microgrid controller:
• Prepare a detailed scope of the expected outcome for the project and provide the technical
characteristics that the ideal solution must be able to meet, and
• Ask bidders to propose a solution that can meet the stated needs, while resisting the impulse to
narrow options or limit responses to a predetermined technology.
“With technology changing rapidly, we understood we were not the experts and looked to third-party
providers to bring creative solutions to fit our needs.” says Noel.
The RFI resulted in several quality responses from northern Colorado-based companies, and Poudre
Valley REA selected an Egility controller from Encorp.
“The RFI from Poudre Valley was well done, detailed enough, but not to the point of being arduous,” says
Michael Clark, CEO of Encorp. “Sometimes RFIs are written in a way where it’s clear that they don’t
know what they want, or are written so specifically that you feel it would be challenging to work with the
client.”
When it later issued a Request for Proposals for a battery system, the cooperative again focused on the
general need, though it now had one specific criteria – the technology would need to work seamlessly
with the Encorp controller.
Initially, Poudre Valley REA reached out directly to battery manufacturers, before being directed to
companies that installed distributed energy projects. Poudre Valley REA eventually purchased a Tesla
battery energy system through Namaste Solar, another local Colorado company. Namaste Solar was
contracted to deliver and install the battery system.
Design Challenge for the Host Utility
Poudre Valley REA utilized the technical engineering staff at Sandia National Laboratories to estimate the
optimal sizes of the components of the Red Feather Lakes microgrid. Models were run to determine the
combination of highest efficiency at lowest cost in two applications: stand-alone (island) mode and in
grid-connected mode (for reduction of demand during coincident peak periods).
Since two of the three active resources in the microgrid – the PV system at the library and the propane
generator at the fire station – are existing resources that are neither owned by the cooperative or covered
by RESDP, the key resource decision informed by the Sandia analysis was the power and energy
characteristics of the battery energy storage system. The analysis provided parameters of how the
microgrid can be expected to operate, in order to maintain safe and efficient use of the equipment while
achieving the desired results at the lowest cost.
In island mode, the PV system, when producing, will meet existing demand within the microgrid up to
20 kW, with the BESS picking up additional load from the peak microgrid demand of 90 kW. The battery,
which has an expected 3.2 hours of storage under peak loading, will be recharged from the generator. In
total, the microgrid should provide at least 12 hours of resiliency during a grid outage. This should
provide ample coverage during a “standard” outage in Red Feather Lakes of two to four hours from a
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.downed tree or a vehicle taking out a co-op utility pole. In grid-connected, demand response mode, the
BESS is expected to discharge up to 120 times per year.
Poudre Valley REA’s system engineering
team took the lead in determining where to
locate the microgrid’s three-phase service,
and to design and build the necessary
infrastructure to support it. This included an
upgrade of the existing three-phase service at
the fire station, which involved installation
of new transformers, poles, and primary line
(see Figure 2).
Troy Richter, the cooperative’s engineering
director, notes that infrastructure within
proximity to the fire station has been
augmented to help isolate the microgrid from
the rest of the system, including the addition
of switches and reclosers. “We’re using a
common mid-line electronic recloser for Figure 2: Installing the Encorp controller (open cabinet)
monitoring operations and for the control of next to Tesla battery outside the Red Feather Lakes fire
the isolation point of the microgrid,” he says. station. Image courtesy of Poudre Valley REA.
Primary metering is being installed to
provide a continuous monitoring element for the grid until the microgrid is brought into play. “Eventually,
the microgrid will isolate itself and become independent when called upon,” he adds.
Richter is bullish on the microgrid project, which he says is a great asset for the community and an ideal
learning experience for the cooperative and its partners. “We have a lot of expertise with distributed
energy resources, but not yet with energy storage,” he says. “It’s an up and coming area and this project is
an opportunity to learn on a smaller scale.”
He notes the irony of intentionally creating a microgrid in order to maintain reliable service. “An islanded
grid is something we typically try to avoid. Following industry standards, we incorporate distributed
energy resources into the grid, so they operate in parallel, all parts working together,” he says. “Usually
when a resource is not conforming, our job is to isolate it to maintain system reliability and meet our
standards for service to our members.”
Building and Commissioning the BESS
The original timeline of the project was pushed back several months due to the massive Cameron Peak
wildfire in September 2020, which came close enough to Red Feather Lakes to force an evacuation of the
community and residences in the surrounding area. Once it was safe to resume work on the microgrid, it
was nearly winter, and completion of the final parts of the project was postponed to the spring of 2021.
Poudre Valley REA worked in concert with technical staff from Encorp and Namaste Solar to install and
connect the microgrid. The cooperative spent a few weeks on the pre-installation design and engineering
work, with less than three days of construction on site. An electrical contractor hired by Encorp installed
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.the lower voltage conduit, and technicians from Encorp and Namaste Solar worked for about five weeks
to install the controller and the battery on a concrete pad outside the fire station.
Since the battery system and the controller were procured separately, there may have been more parties
involved in the construction and completion of the microgrid than may have been the case if one prime
contractor was hired to deliver the controller and battery as a package. But the different entities worked
well together, and the project was executed in an efficient and timely manner with only two factors
working against it – the wildfires and the pandemic.
Encorp has installed its controller in microgrid projects of similar size in the U.S. and overseas in South
Africa and India, though usually with a commercial customer as the owner. CEO Michael Clark says that
working with a cooperative utility was a significant and positive difference. “With their level of expertise,
it was easy for the co-op to understand the issues and work hand-in-hand with our people and our
electrical contractor,” he says. “The staff at Poudre Valley also wish to learn. That’s not the case with
many of our clients.”
Since the hot commissioning of the BESS (just before the onset of below-zero weather after the first of
the year), the project was grid-connected and sitting in idle, consuming power in order to maintain a
minimum temperature in order to safeguard the battery system. In July 2021, the distribution upgrades
were completed at the end of July with the final commissioning process set to finish in early August.
Evaluating the Project
Tri-State G&T Association, Poudre Valley REA’s cooperative power supplier, sees the project as an
important test of the promise for microgrids as a means of improving resiliency to rural communities. It
will also demonstrate how the battery system functions when called upon in demand response mode.
Matt Fitzgibbon, beneficial electrification manager, says that a handful of other Tri-State member systems
are discussing battery installations. “Poudre Valley’s project is among the most intricate and resiliency
focused.” Given the changing trends in the industry “our biggest takeaway from the Red Feather Lakes
project is that it will be an extensive demonstration of the strengths and the weaknesses of this approach
and of the opportunities for other utilities.”
The microgrid will be put to its first real time test by the summer of 2021, when it will begin to deliver on
its two defined applications of resiliency and demand response.
As to Poudre Valley REA’s goal of standardizing microgrid design, as developed, the project shows a
degree of promise. The Tesla battery system selected for the project was not custom-built, but an ‘off the
shelf’ product. The controller is supplied by a company that focuses on standardization, though Encorp’s
CEO Clark takes care to explain that controllers specifically, and microgrids in general, are not ‘plug and
play.’
The hardware is “80 percent standardized,” he says. “The controller platform is the size of a refrigerator
and can fit most applications. The software, however, is almost entirely done from the ground up, though
it does not require an intense engineering effort. The communications interfaces for each project are
designed individually.”
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.Some of the customization comes from having to manage and harmonize disparate elements of varying
ages. “A microgrid is never a set of all-new components,” says Clark. “There are always existing pieces
of equipment that form the facility, whether is it a generator or a solar system, that may have been in place
and operating for years.”
Figure 3: PVREA linemen Kevin Kelly
(in bucket) and Thomas Bullock (on
ground by truck) upgrading utility
service for the microgrid.
Image Courtesy of Poudre Valley REA.
Next Steps
Poudre Valley REA line crews are finished with the distribution work, building around the community to
allow for isolation of the microgrid. In August 2021, the project should be ready for both grid-parallel
and grid-independent operation.
The microgrid will be controlled by PVREA through its SCADA system at the co-op headquarters in Fort
Collins. The co-op will create customized SCADA screens to allow for 24/7 monitoring and will develop
a standard operating procedure for the sequence of operations needed to make active use of the microgrid.
The cooperative plans to bring Encorp in to provide a training program for its technical staff and
operations, and a second training for line crews that will focus on fire safety as well as microgrid manual
operations. Richter wants the line crews to “reach a comfort level with the battery, to be able to ask ‘what
am I looking at here? What am I going to encounter when we are working around the microgrid?’”
After the microgrid is fully commissioned, the co-op will work on signage for the project, which will be
located near the BESS. The co-op also plans to have ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled in the coming
months.
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Copyright © 2021 by NRECA Research. All Rights Reserved.Contacts for Questions
Lauren Khair Maria Kanevsky
Director, Business Transformation Senior Analyst, Energy
Business and Technology Strategies Business and Technology Strategies
Lauren.Khair@nreca.coop Maria.Kanevsky@nreca.coop
o: 703-907-6845 m: 571-424-0978 o: 703.907.6243 m: 571.205.2634
This case study was written by Jan Ahlen, NRECA Director of Energy Solutions, and Bob Gibson,
Consultant & Technical Writer (Gibson Energy Insights: gibsonenergyinsights@gmail.com).
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